


Play to Win

by angelgazing



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turns out, Wilson really likes motorbikes. House likes that he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play to Win

It's a challenge. A fight. It's a brutal battle of wills, winner takes all, takes glory and pride and shows, once and for all, who is the better, the stronger. The more obviously savage. The nonconformity; unwilling to submit to rules.

House hits Wilson's shin with his cane, and Wilson grunts and looks away and _blinks_. House raises his arms in victory. "Oh no," he says, "I won _again_."

"Yeah," Wilson mutters, just a tinge of bitterness in his voice, with the quirk of his eyebrow that he gets when he's just _amused_ but doesn't want to be. "You're a regular staring contest champion."

"I am a champion of all things," House tells him, and twirls his cane in his palms. "I think it's imperative that you know this."

"You're a cheat is what you are." Wilson keeps rubbing his shin like he's suffered a fatal injury, and House—feeling magnanimous—decides not take the easy bait. Wilson's pride has suffered enough for today anyway. "You shouldn't be allowed to use that thing as a weapon. It's not sporting."

"It's okay to be impressed by me. You don't need to feel ashamed. Many people are."

"Ashamed?"

"Only of cheating on their wives with nurses and accountants." And really, the nice guy thing never lasts for very long, but this might be a record.

Wilson's mouth tightens, and he presses his palms flat against the arms of the extra chair in House's office. It's uncomfortable, but it's that way for a reason. Wilson puts his feet up on House's mildly overflowing inbox. "My tie," he says lightly, nose stuck mockingly up in the air, "is not green."

House can see his reflection in the side of Wilson's very expensive wooing shoes. He makes a face. "I think Julie also hates the French."

"I'm pretty sure Julie just hates your French," Wilson says dryly. He takes a drink of coffee and doesn't even complain that it's got too much sugar and it's cold. "Rematch?" he asks as he puts down the mug, like they don't have jobs to do.

"If you think your ego can take another lashing," House answers, and puts his chin in his palm.

\---

"There's no mistletoe here," House says in his stern teacher voice, because Chase and Cameron are just standing in the door looking horrified and, well, it's always fun to make them look like that. When the opportunity is right there in front of him he can't just walk away from it.

"We weren't—" Cameron says, and House and Chase both roll their eyes.

"Of course you weren't." House knocks his cane impatiently against the tile floor, just hard enough so it makes a lot of noise. "Now, if you don't mind, children, you're standing between me and my coffee and Vicodin breakfast."

\---

"Are we going to take a case this week?" Foreman asks him, like he's only vaguely interested. House can _hear_ the way his eyebrows are raised in question.

"Nope." House tosses a ball up in the air and is bored with the question.

\---

He is, innocently enough, sitting at his desk, and House looks at his watch, just to be sure, then walks in, sits down and clears his throat.

Wilson jumps, like House is somehow stealthy, and hides whatever he was just looking at under a chart. He holds up an x-ray, and tried to look innocent.

"Dirty magazine?"

"Hm?" Wilson asks, like he's really _focusing_ on the x-ray, and looks at House through the fractured left femur. It wasn't a clean break. "What are you doing here?"

"Seeing why you didn't show up for lunch. Are you looking at porn at _work_?" House leans forward eagerly. "Dr. Wilson, that might just be the most interesting thing you've ever done in this office. So what is it? Naughty Nurses at Play? Dirty Doctors Monthly? Hospitable Hospital Accountants?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Wilson tells him, calmly, the tops of his ears going pink. He shifts in his seat as he lowers the x-ray. "Were we supposed to meet for lunch?"

House puts his hand over his heart mockingly, like he's just been injured, and it might be true if he weren't overrun with curiosity. "I think I just found out what it feels like to be married to you," he says, and in a movement so quick he's sure many ninjas would be proud and envious, manages to snag the magazine. And upend the chart over it all over Wilson's lap. It's like he deserves double points.

Or triple, maybe, because Wilson stands up and his cheeks are pink now too and he sputters.

It's almost more fun than making Cameron see how terrible life is.

"I hate you," Wilson says, dropping back into his chair and bending down to pick up the pieces of the dropped chart and to hide.

"Oh my god," House says, and drops his stolen piece of victory like he would a burning bag of feces. Though he wouldn't have picked that up to begin with. Wilson hits his head on the underside of his desk. "I don't know what upsets me more," he says, eyes squeezed tightly shut, "that Harley-Davidson has a catalogue, or that you were practically drooling over it."

Wilson shrugs. "Patient left it in the clinic."

"Liar. You're _taking an interest_. Just like Mom used to do."

"Yeah," Wilson says, his voice thick with sarcasm. "That's exactly what I was doing."

House tilts his head, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Are you jealous of my hog, Jimmy? Want me to take you on ride?"

Wilson blushes again, only _furiously_ this time. And House is pretty sure he just found the best toy ever.

\---

"Cameron," House snaps, and grins wide enough to show all his teeth and make even Foreman look a little afraid. He's bottle of Vicodin rattles in his pocket and Cameron jumps up, ready to follow his command and he's done with clinic duty for the week because Chase did his hours.

"We have a patient?" Foreman asks, and tries to look bored again, so House just grins wider. It makes him shift in his chair.

"No, we have a mission."

"A mission?"

"Cameron," House says, over Foreman's annoying eyebrow talking, "stop ogling Chase in the office. I _know_ he's pretty, but we've got work to be done!"

"This is going to be one of those things where we help you in your demented revenge against Cuddy for making you do your job isn't it?"

"No, but since you spoke her name _you're_ in charge of clinic duty and keeping her off my back." House smirks, and knocks his cane against the floor to watch them all jump, just because it's fun. "Like Bloody Mary, or Beetlejuice. You call her, she's your responsibility."

Foreman leans back in his seat and crosses his arms, and then he looks at Cameron or Chase like they might be of some help. It takes almost twenty seconds for him to reach the obvious conclusion. "Okay," he says. "I'll do clinic duty, because as long as I'm there I don't get dragged into whatever you're planning now."

"Excellent!" House turns on his heel and his cane, and Chase doesn't look scared so much as resigned, which will never, ever do. "Chase, you're going to the toy store."

"Why?"

"To teach you the real reason that people use condoms."

Chase just groans, and goes for his coat.

\---

"Do you know how many people die in motorcycle accidents every year?" Wilson asks, first thing, like it works as 'hello.' He leans on his shoulder in the door to House's office with his legs crossed at the ankle and his hands in his pockets. Since it's a glass door, House can only imagine how painful that casual lean thing really is.

"Um. A lot?" House answers, eyebrows furrowed in false concern and ignorance.

Wilson snorts. "Exactly," he says, his voice dry and his eyes not meeting House's.

"Is that your way of saying you want me to take you for a ride?"

\---

"You know," Cameron says, as she watches from behind on open chart as Wilson pulls a miniature toy motorcycle from his coffee cup, "this is why nobody likes you."

"You like me," House answers, and bats his eyelashes.

Wilson holds the motorcycle by the front wheel with his fingertips. It drips coffee on the conference room table. "No, she's right. This is why nobody likes you."

"You like me," House repeats, and closes the chart with his cane. "And we're not taking that case. It's boring."

"Heaven forbid you should be bored." Wilson seems to consider it for a moment, his coffee cup and the dripping toy, his feet up on the table and the coffee pot all the way across the room. He takes a drink from his mug and rolls his eyes.

\---

House, being the man of great mental strength that he is, rolls the red motorcycle toward the green very fast, until the green swerves at the last minute.

The green always was a coward, and it still smells like coffee.

Wilson watches him and eats plain potato chips out of the bag. General Hospital is on commercial and they can only watch something that ends in "ask your doctor about your options today" so many times. He keeps watching House while House pretends not to notice.

"I don't like motorcycles," Wilson says—out of nowhere—when Jason is onscreen and dying again.

House shrugs and slips the red one into the pocket of Wilson's lab coat.

\---

Wilson drops another motorcycle on his desk, and sits down heavily. "How did you get into my car?"

"A magician never reveals his secrets," House says, feet propped up on his desk, fingers interlocked behind his head. He smirks as Wilson sighs and then mimics his pose.

\---

"Do you think you might be taking this a little too far?" Foreman asks, because it's the annoying Goody-Two-Shoes-Holier-Than-Thou question and he's got the market cornered on those. He's doing his virtuous eyebrow raise of Now-Don't-You-Feel-Ashamed again just to make House crazy.

House, however, has no shame left. And he looks at Foreman like maybe Foreman is as stupid as his question. "No-o," he says, drawing out his answer in his very best You're-Stupid-and-I-Can't-Be-Bothered-with-You voice.

Foreman holds his hands up, "I cannot be party to this."

"You'll break into a patient's house on his orders, but you won't do this?" Chase asks, and sounds really put out. He's holding a pushpin in his teeth. "At least this is a joke and not a felony."

"I'm pretty sure the end result he's hoping for is illegal in a few states," Foreman mutters, eyebrows raised smugly.

"No talking while on the clock." House hits them lightly across the shins with his cane. "There's work for you to be doing."

\---

Selflessly, and for the first time ever, House holds the elevator when Wilson calls for him too. He smirks as Wilson jogs down the hall—like he's afraid House will change his mind.

"You wallpapered my office with a Harley-Davidson catalogue, 50s' pinup girls on bikes, and what looks like the Gay Hell's Angels calendar," he says, and doesn't seem all that angry. He's still wearing his lab coat and House never got the red one returned to him.

House isn't the kind of guy to need big flashing rainbow letters. "So is it the chrome? The power? The _leather_?" he asks, leaning forward and all but hissing the last word. The doors of the elevator are closed, but it's still.

"I don't like motorcycles," Wilson says, and smiles like he's really amused by this. Like he's not just humoring House this time.

"Liar."

Wilson shrugs, and his hand is fisted in his pocket and House knows around what because he knows _Wilson_. Everything he does is telling, and he's still wearing his overly shiny wooing shoes. "I was taking an interest."


End file.
